Violent Media Is Good for Kids

Violence in media is healthy and beneficial for children—or so claims Gerard Jones, author of “Violent Media is Good for Kids”. It is undeniable that the title of Jones’s essay is straightforward and aptly named, if not confidently bold. But while his claim may boast confidence, it lacks credibility. Jones does do a great job introducing his controversial claim by using passion, persuasion, and personal experience. However, his insufficient evidence and fallacious reasoning fail to support the claim he is making, and therefore weaken his argument.

The author starts off his essay by allowing his reader to take a peek into his childhood and see the lonely, passive, and frightened years of his youth. He explains that his shyness and introversion were due to his strict upbringing and feeling of not fitting in at his school. He then goes on to explain how he discovered Marvel Comics, to whom he credits for his blossoming into a stronger individual and breaking out of his shell. Jones describes how he first identified with the Hulk character, who mirrored his “fantasy self” and allowed him to explore a darker side of his psyche that he kept hidden, which eventually lead to the development of his social and motivational skills. He claims that the skills he learned from the violence in these comic books carved the path for his career as an action movie and comic book writer.

I do have to give Jones kudos for being able to create a more personal tone to his essay in order to engage the reader and create a connection there by using his own experience. But while I think that his story gave the reader more insight and set the stage for his essay, I also think his claim that violence led him to success might be too controversial to use as solid evidence and is more opinion-based than factual. “They were good for me because they were juvenile. And violent” (para. 2). What about the bravery and strength aspect of superheroes? It cannot be...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...Devina Rahim
ENC1102
6/13/2013
Article: ViolentMedia is Good for Kids
Author: Gerard Jones
ViolentMedia is Good for Kids
Black Ops is one of the most popular violent games in the world of PlayStation, Xbox, and other gaming systems. Violence has existed long before there was violentmedia. In the article “ViolentMedia is Good for Kids”, by Gerard Jones makes a strong argument concerning violence and children. He had great points about some troubled young children are able to transform and use their comic books as an outflow. Jones uses three elements to convince the reader that media violence is not necessarily detrimental to children in fact, it maybe even helpful. Again these three elements he uses believe him as an evidence of his arguments in the following proclamation of level of diction, tone, and organization and examples.
To begin the element of level of diction, Jones uses words are primarily conversational. Using his own personal experience, at the age of thirteen he was alone and afraid because his parents showed him that the world is full of violence. Jones believed this is a great point to start his persuading the reader. While growing up he suffocated his fears and his desires under a nice boy persona. Soon Jones had...

...ViolentMedia is Good for Kids Analysis
From infancy onward, parents and teachers have drilled into the young generation that violence should be avoided at all costs. They have preached cooperation, tolerance, and “using one’s words” as tactics to combat difficult situations. Although those lessons are valid, Gerald Jones claims there is an alternative way. In his essay, “ViolentMedia is Good for Kids,” Jones argues that “creative violence- bonking cartoons, bloody videogames, toy guns-gives children a tool to master their rage” (Jones). In other words, media violence, used correctly, can serve as an alternative method for powering through adolescence. By reading and writing violent stories, children are able to express themselves safely and even escape from the sometimes harsh reality. Jones effectively supports this stance using the three rhetorical appeals- ethos, pathos, and logos.
To affirm his credibility on the matter, Jones employs two tactics. First, he goes into detail about his expertise and past history with media violence to confirm his credibility as the speaker. Then, he uses the powerful tool of rebuttal to show the credibility of his argument.
Throughout the essay, Jones discusses his past with violentmedia. He begins with discussing his professional career...

...VIOLENTMEDIA IS GOOD FOR KIDS
By Gerard Jones
In our class book Practical Argument, I chose “ViolentMedia is Good for Kids” by Gerard Joneson page 36. In this article Jones states and tries to prove that violentmedia is undeniably good for children. He challenges this by saying what he believes also how he grew up too passive because he was sheltered from the media. Upon hearing that the media has "lofty messages of pacifism and tolerance" (par.2), his mother had borrowed some comics for him to read. After reading the comics, he said that he followed Hulk for a while then switched to "more sophisticated heroes", in (par. 3) and "finally found my own lead along a twisting path to a career and an identity." (par. 3) Later on, his son was afraid to climb a tree, so Jones read the stories of Tarzan to his son. About a week or so, his son was climbing trees. In (par. 4) Jones has given other examples of children who used violentmedia to overcome their stressful and hurtful lives. In modern years, there has been dispute about whether or not children should view, or listen to violentmedia. In "ViolentMedia is Good for...

...Analysis of “ViolentMedia is Good for Kids”
Gerard Jones' essay “ViolentMedia is Good for Kids” was a very interesting paper. He opens with a story of him as a child, “alone and afraid” of the rage that was inside of him. His parents taught him that violence was wrong and that rage was something that could be simply overcome. Jones' main argument was aimed at parents, saying that they are stifling a child's natural instinct of anger and rage. He wrote that “we send the message to our children in a hundred ways that their craving for imaginary gun battles and symbolic killing is wrong...”, and uses his own childhood as an example of how comics were good for him because they were juvenile and violent. I feel that his explanation of our fear of “youth violence” is logically sound, and I agree with him that violentmedia can actually help children.
Jones states the children will feel rage. He goes on to explain that children are going to get angry regardless of how sweet the child is, or how much the parents try to help it. Jones proposes that “creative violence”- head-bonking cartoons, bloody video games, playground karate, toy guns- gives children a tool to help control and manage their rage. While growing up, his parents never really allowed him to project violence and anger. But through reading The...

...“golden candlesticks” represents Parris’ own greed and by extension the corrupted power of the theocracy of Salem. There are continuous references to light and dark within Miller’s play and Hytner draws attention to this particularly when Parris stands in the pulpit announcing excommunication and then turns and smothers the candle light between his fingers. This action although simple has a destructive element as instead of blowing out the light he smothers it viciously, causing the audience to feel a sense of foreboding for what is to come. Finally, Miller’s dialogue is possibly the most important part of the play captured fairly accurately by Hytner. The symbolism of a person’s name is integral to conveying Miller’s idea of the value of a good reputation within the community. When Parris queries Abigail about her affair with Proctor he says, “your name in the village is entirely white, is it not?” to which she replies, “there be no blush about my name, sir.” Abigail’s defensive attitude not only indicates she is lying, but also presents the idea of her innocence being tainted, which is emulated well in the film. Cinematically Hytner uses camera angles at the crucial moment when Proctor is signing his own confession, swapping from a camera angle looking up at his face and his view looking down writing his name. The use of silence here rather than meaningful non-diegetic sound helps to emphasise that this sort of thing actually happened across America during...

...Jones article “ViolentMedia is Good for Kids” Jones argues that violentmedia can very well have positive impact on young people. He simply does this by opening up with his own childhood story of how he was taught by his parents and teachers that all violence was wrong. We then find out that he became shy and lonely because he was not able to express himself properly due to hiding his fears and desires. It wasn’t until his mother was convinced by one of her students to let her son read comic books did he let go of his fears. “I had a fantasy self: unafraid of his desires” (Jones 36). Jones speaks of his favorite comic books such as the hulk and how he could relate. He claims this did not make him a violent child but helped him escape his own emotional trap and eventually led to his career job. However, Gerad Jones does not only give his own story as proof; he also mentions many more reasons violentmedia is helpful for young people. Take his own son for example. “I have watched my son living the same story, transforming into a Bloodthirsty dinosaur to embolden himself for the plunge into preschool” (Jones 37). He later describes reading Tarzan to his son to help him get over his fear of climbing a tree. What better way would you get a kid to climb trees, than to read about a hero that climbs trees all the time? Kids get...

...﻿ViolentMedia is good for Kids by Gerard Jones
Outline
Introduction:
Jones’s thesis expresses that violentmedia are not a bad influence on children, but it does however; allow them to better express themselves. They also can benefit them to release their inner rage as well as gaining their confidence.
Body paragraph:
Throughout Jones’s article he uses some persuasive antics to encourage readers that violentmedia can decrease the amount of rage and reckless a child can have…
“ pretending to have superhuman powers can help children conquer the feelings of powerlessness that inevitably comes with being so young and small” (11)—learning how to express their feelings the same way a super hero would, or have a different aspect on how to approach a situation without being the bad guy in the scenario.
“ at its most fundamental level, what we call “creative violence”—head bonking cartoons, bloody video games…” (12) here it states making violence fun, and amusing may come off to strong? Perhaps this can cause children to think that is ok to trip someone because they want to get revenge.
In paragraph 15, Jones summarizes an experience he had with a girl who had some issues at home, but she used rap to help her console with her feeling. Music is a good way to express feelings and getting lost in music is a good way to relieve stress...

...ViolentMedia, Good or Bad?
I’m sure most of you watched cartoons, movies, read comic books as kids with violence involved. There’s always doubt in our minds in how did these violentmedia affects us growing up? Does it help us as a tool to master our own uncontrollable anger? Or does it build up anger and hatred as we grow up? . What is violentmedia? Violentmedia could be anything from a scene from a movie to a shooting video game. Violentmedia has dramatically increased over the last years making it one of the most controversial topics to talk about today. Most of us would also disagree that violentmedia is good for our children. How is this topic relevance to society? Violentmedia is often blamed for several catastrophic events linked to rough media influencing these events. As intense activity keeps exploding over the years, more and more disastrous events keep arising making us ask ourselves is violentmediagood or bad for our kids? . There are also writers that would approve Ferocious Media to be used as a tool to master your children inner rage. Writers like Gerard Jones that would approve violentmedia such as...